In the recent past, there has been a vast increase in the amounts of data transferred over networks. One of the primary reasons for such increased communication of data is the presence of larger, new and improved networks with the ability to transfer data at high transmission rates. One example of a network where data is being communication at an ever increasing rate is the Internet.
The Internet and other wide area networks commonly include a plurality of databases, or servers, which are connected by way of a system of communication lines. Such communication lines are traditionally constructed from a metallic, fiber optic, or likewise material to afford “hard-line” communication. In operation, users often access one of the servers in order to communicate data to another one of the servers which may be accessed by another user.
With the increasing popularity of the Internet, there has been a significant rise in demand for access to servers. This demand, in turn, has prompted the construction of large warehouses of servers (e.g. co-location facilities such as those provided by Exodus Corporation, UUNET, and others) which are connected to servers outside the building structure by way of the Internet, and connected to the remaining servers via a local area network (LAN) such as an Ethernet.
Prior art FIG. 1 illustrates a warehouse 100 with a plurality of interconnected servers 102. Communication between the servers 102 within the warehouse 100 is supported by a local area network 104, i.e. Ethernet, and a router 106. Such router 106 directs data received from one of the servers 102 to another one of the servers 102 by way of either the Internet 108 or the local area network 104.
The router 106 is often incapable of instantly directing data to a server 102 upon the receipt thereof. This results in an unacceptable latency, or a delay, during data trafficking between the networked servers. This delay has in the past been dwarfed by the delay associated with data transfer between a client computer of a user and a server. Such connections to the servers, however, are exhibiting faster and faster data transfer rates. This trend is rendering the delay between the network servers to be a significant “bottleneck.”
There is thus a need for a system and method for providing an alternate data communication medium among networked databases that is capable of alleviating such delay, especially among networked databases in a single building structure.